Something Warm and Tender
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: Jiraiya, apparently, has foisted a few of his duties as a sensei onto Sakumo and now it's up to him to teach Lee and Minato about some of the facts of life, and why it's not such a great idea for them to share a bedroom. side fic to "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds"


**Author's Note: Warning that this is a side fic to "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds" and if you haven't read that then you will be rather confused. Also, this is NOT CANON.**

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Sakumo wasn't quite sure how he got roped into this one or what even this was (although he had strong suspicions), "I'm sorry, Lee, Jiraiya told you to do what?"

But he was more than certain that he could lay the blame at Jiraiya's sandals.

"Jiraiya-sensei said that, and I quote, your living arrangements are really starting to freak me out and you need to ask Hatake Sakumo why because I am not even going to go there, squirts. I just expect you to do something about it, because seriously Lee-chan, Minato-kun… You guys can't honestly be cool with living in the same apartment."

Sakumo, staring at Eru Lee and Namikaze Minato, staring up at him from his doorstep with adorable, innocent, blinking twelve-year-old eyes, on one of the few days that he had to spend with his son and not be sent across the continent to pillage and assassinate, realized that Jiraiya had sent them over to sunder that innocence so that he wouldn't have to.

In other words, apparently, Sakumo was about to teach Jiraiya's genin students about sex.

"And he didn't send your teammate?" Whose name was honestly escaping Sakumo at the moment, but, well they weren't his students. And in his defense, he'd known Lee and Minato long before they had graduated, before they had anything to do with Jiraiya.

He wasn't sure he'd ever met the third.

Lee pursed her lips, looking rather intent as if merely thinking about this enough would unravel Jiraiya's thought process, "Yeah, I asked him about that too, but apparently since Dead Last doesn't live with us he doesn't have a problem… I think sensei just wanted to write porn."

Sakumo blinked, write porn… That was new, Sakumo didn't think that Jiraiya wrote any porn, if anything he'd probably be at the bathhouse witnessing the real deal for himself. Still, if Jiraiya was going to write anything, well, then it probably would be porn.

Which would make him an excellent person to be giving this talk rather than Sakumo, who hadn't even thought about sex in any real sense since his wife had died two years earlier… Although, maybe that made Jiraiya the least qualified to give this sort of a talk. Now, Sakumo couldn't decide.

"Sensei writes porn?" Minato asked, and then flushed, his face growing swiftly from the pink of cherry blossoms to a flaring red.

"He always says he's researching at bathhouses, I assumed that was for porn… He should get into it, if he isn't already, he probably would make a killing." Lee paused, considering this idea, "Maybe I should get into this while no one's in the market, I'd make a killing…"

Minato gave Lee a somewhat broken, flat, look, "I think the world's seen enough Hamlet porn to last it until the end of days, Lee."

"Well, it is the end of days, so that's like tomorrow." Lee pointed out, with her usual confidence.

Minato blanched, "That wasn't what I meant… You know, why don't you hold that thought until… forever, Lee? I don't think I could handle any more Shakespeare inspired porn movies. Even if they are just _Christmas_ gifts."

Well, they clearly knew about sex, at least generally… Didn't the academy have a sexual education course? So surely the two should know and…

"Why don't you two come inside?" Sakumo asked, stepping out of the doorway. For a moment, the two looked at each other, sharing some unknown thought between them through eye contact alone, then stepped inside and removed their sandals.

As they stepped in they looked around at the wooden floors, the bamboo doorways, and the tatami mats of empty rooms. The Hatake clan had once been bigger, never as large as the overwhelming Uchiha or Hyuga clans, but they had been a clan in their own right. Of course, that had been many years ago, even by Konoha's founding they had been dwindling in number.

Until now, after two great shinobi wars, he and Kakashi were the only ones left.

Though they were not the entire quarter of Konoha like the Uchiha compound, or sizeable like the Nara, Yamanaka, Hyuga, or even Senju compounds, there were still far too many rooms for he and Kakashi to truly inhabit without being spread far too thin.

He led them into the kitchen glanced towards the floor where Kakashi still sat, playing with plush toys, glancing up to give Minato and Lee a rather panicked glance.

The pair stared at him for a moment but Sakumo pushed them onwards to the chairs, "Go on, sit down, I'll make you tea. I have the feeling this might be a… long conversation."

As he brought out the kettle, set it onto the stove to boil, and searched through his cabinets for packaged tea he said, "That's my son, Kakashi, by the way. I'm not sure if you've met him before…"

"Oh, well… he is adorable." Lee said, green eyes almost panicked as they went to Kakashi and back to Sakumo, looking like she had no idea at all what to say, to which Sakumo couldn't help but smile fondly at.

He'd always been fond of Lee, since the moment he'd first caught her, madly dashing out of the hokage tower after somehow removing gravity altogether, her hair a great red banner behind her and her eyes filled with ineffable and eternal starlight.

And when he'd caught her, she'd just given him this painfully awkward and cheesy smile, like by smiling alone he might be inclined to forgive her transgressions. Others had been furious, irritated, annoyed, but him… Well, on him it had worked.

"He's just shy, I'm sure he'll say hello when he sees you're alright."

As the tea finished he poured three cups, placed two in front of the two children, his own at the empty seat and then went to pick Kakashi up, "Oh, Kashi, they're not scary I promise."

Kakashi seemed silently unconvinced, giving his father a worried glance before burying his face in Sakumo's neck, all the same Sakumo walked over towards them, "I suppose Kakashi will just have to say hello later."

"Now, what exactly did Jiraiya say that he wanted me to… say?" Sakumo asked, and again the two shared a glance, looking back at him with raised eyebrows.

Finally, Minato shrugged and said, "I honestly have no idea. Something about me and Lee sharing an apartment."

"Which is very cost-effective by the way. Because while genin salary might be better than academy student salary, it's still not that much pay." Lee said with a grimace and a shrug, which… Well, being the clan heir, even of a relatively small clan, he had never been too concerned over such things at her age.

He supposed as orphans it was quite different.

Still, staring at the two, while it seemed they knew what porn was and were aware of their sensei's… extracurricular activities, they had absolutely no idea why someone might take issue with their sharing an apartment. And, well, perhaps at this age it wasn't an issue. But in a few years, maybe a year even, they would straddle that age that was too young to be doing… certain things, but too old not to know about it.

He could see why it was freaking Jiraiya out.

Honestly, if he spent a bit more time thinking about it, thinking about the fourteen year old Minato and fourteen year old Lee sharing an apartment, good god what if they shared a bedroom, then he was more than a little unnerved.

Abruptly, Sakumo realized he was holding Kakashi, that Kakashi was now peeking at these strange children inside of his house with a curious grey eye, and that Sakumo was about to tell Lee and Minato why it maybe was time for them to start living apart.

He clearly had not thought this through.

"Right, well, Jiraiya wanted me to talk to you about your… living arrangements, right?" He asked, desperate for one of them to say no, of course not, Jiraiya already explained everything.

"Sure," Lee said with a shrug, "I guess, like I said, he wasn't really clear."

Sakumo gripped Kakashi a little tighter, sighed, and said to himself that it was best to get such things over with. Hopefully, Kakashi wouldn't catch on, clever though he might be he was only a toddler… If Namikaze Minato and Eru Lee, the genius genin of their generation, hell one of them an S-ranked ninja in all but name not to mention immortal, could not understand then he could hope Kakashi wouldn't.

"Right, well… You two had certain courses on the… activities of men and women in the academy, didn't you?"

The pair of them looked blank, right, too vague.

"Courses on men and women, who really like each other, and grow close emotionally and physically…"

Minato, at the very least, began to flush and a horrified look of understanding or at least recognition was dawning in his blue eyes. Lee, however, just blinked, and then blinked again, and looked very much like she hadn't.

"This wasn't one of those 'kunoichi' classes, was it?" Lee finally asked, cringing slightly, as if she had just been caught red handed.

Sakumo had a very bad feeling about this.

"Yes, it probably would have been a kunoichi class…"

"Oh, well, you see… I maybe didn't attend any of those, ever."

Sakumo blinked, looked at her, then asked, "You skipped all of your kunoichi lessons?!"

"Hey, you weren't there, I went to the first couple but it was all flower arranging (which I am apparently terrible at) and make up (which I am also apparently terrible at) and a giant waste of my time. I didn't think I was actually expected to go… Besides, being a ninja's all about cheating anyways." Lee said, and then grinned, "And I became a genin anyways, top of my class, so joke's on them."

No, Lee, the joke was not on them. The joke was on her, or at the very least it was apparently now on Sakumo, who was starting to grow a bit flushed himself. When was the last time he'd blushed like this, through complete and utter mortification, without even drinking to spur it on? He felt younger than he had in years.

Kakashi had now turned his head fully to blink at the pair, seemingly having grown beyond his fear to be blatantly curious.

Sakumo, realizing that he now had to explain the mechanizations of sex, with his two-year-old son in his arms (because good god he couldn't let her walk out of there knowing, well, nothing apparently), Minato interrupted, "It's not that important, Lee, just weird… um… adult stuff."

Minato shot Sakumo a rather piercing look, "Isn't that right, Hatake-san?"

No, no that was not right, and Minato was very aware of that but for whatever reason Minato was too embarrassed to have this conversation here, either because of Sakumo, Kakashi, or else Lee herself…

And suddenly, pieces began to click together inside of Sakumo's head, and he realized just why Jiraiya was so concerned now as opposed to a few years down the road. They were young, yes, they probably hadn't even begun to realize they were capable of romantic feelings. But none the less, Minato, at least… he was beginning to. He probably did not realize the extent of it, did not think of how far they would go or where exactly they would end up, but he had begun to see the long road they could journey on if they so chose.

Lee, for the moment, remained oblivious. But even she wouldn't forever, give it a few years, give a year only, or perhaps even now something was blossoming between them.

"Well, I suppose Jiraiya can talk to you about that later." Sakumo said, with a soft smile, and added, "Do tell him that, by the way, that Hatake Sakumo said that he, as your sensei, has an unavoidable duty to bring up certain conversations."

"Oh, well, that's cool then… So, was there any point to us actually coming over?" Lee asked, with raised eyebrows.

Minato breathed out in relief, his flush fading, and said weakly, "I guess not. Maybe Jiraiya just wanted us out of the house… or something…"

Or something indeed, well, they were a bit young but who was Sakumo to point fingers? Also, he'd let Jiraiya deal with the fallout of this one, since he tried pushing the talk onto someone who wasn't even related to them and technically not even their teacher on one of Sakumo's few days off.

Seriously, Jiraiya, sometimes he was such an inconsiderate ass.

"Well, I enjoyed seeing you two, it's been a while." Sakumo said, and added, "And, certainly Kakashi has enjoyed meeting you, right Kashi-chan?"

Kakashi looked up at his father and gave a small, hesitant, nod.

"And since you two are here anyways, why don't you tell me about your latest adventures? I heard from Jiraiya that you'll be taking another C-rank soon…"

And Lee launched into a tirade about plant zombie assassins, the villainy of C-ranks, the complete illogical workings of reality, her passionate hatred of the hospital, and more while Minato would occasionally interject with his own thoughts and impressions. Kakashi watched with large eyes and childlike wonder, gripping his father tightly at all the right moments and almost clapping at tales of team seven's triumphs.

And if Minato stared at her a bit too long on occasion, or still had that light dust of blush over his cheeks, then Sakumo was choosing to turn a blind eye and instead enjoy the moment for what it was.

Something warm, tender, and irreplaceable.

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 **Author's Note: Minato has feeeeeelz... Written for the 1200th review of "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds" by wittyying who asked for a fic with Lee and Sakumo interacting. Anyways, this is what resulted.**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews are greatly appreciated.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Naruto.**


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